Komisarjevsky's Father: 'A Miracle' Baby, 'Satanic Activities'

NEW HAVEN — — Ben Komisarjevsky called it "a miracle" that he and his wife, Jude, were able to adopt 2-week-old Joshua Komisarjevsky in 1980.

But testifying on the second day of the penalty phase of his son's trial, Ben Komisarjevsky's detailed account about his son's life mixed times of hope and times of despair.

He was shocked and bewildered when he learned that Josh, then a young teen, had sexually molested his younger sister; crushed when his teenage son participated in what he called "satanic activities"; proud a few years later when Josh graduated from Army Reserve basic training.

Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 31, was convicted earlier this month in the gruesome 2007 Cheshire home invasion case that left Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley and Michaela, dead. The same jury that convicted him is hearing testimony to decide whether he should be put to death by lethal injection or sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ben Komisarjevsky said adoption officials did not tell him and his wife much about Joshua's biological parents, other than that the baby's mother was 16 and his father was a mechanic barely out of his teens.

Ben Komisarjevsky testified that he and Jude had a background in child care, having been houseparents at a residential center for developmentally disabled children in Barkhamsted.

In a halting, gravelly voice that he explained was caused by Parkinson's disease, Ben Komisarjevsky testified that by the early 1980s, the Komisarjevskys had a very crowded, atypical houshold. In addition to young Joshua, there was Naomi, a daughter born to Jude in a high-risk pregnancy after Joshua was adopted; and two foster teenagers, Scott and Beverly, both of whom had been abused. Scott also was developmentally disabled, Ben Komisarjevsky said.

The family took them in, Ben Komisarjevsky told defense attorney Todd A. Bussert, because "nobody else would love them."

Ben Komisarjevsky said the family moved back to his parents' home in Cheshire in 1985 and was living in a converted barn, a move that he said upset Jude because she didn't want to leave her parents in Torrington.

Ben Komisarjevsky testified that he was working double shifts as an electrician — 16 hours a day — when his wife told him she'd discovered that Scott had been sexually assaulting Joshua and the other children. Scott was removed from the home.

A slight, white-haired man, Ben Komisarjevsky acknowledged that he was a somewhat "rigid" man who, along with Jude, was deeply immersed in Bible study and ran a religious groups for young people and for businessmen.

Bussert asked Komisarjevsky if he ever spoke in tongues, and Komisarjevsky replied that he did.

"It's prayer language and should be interpreted if it's spoken aloud to a group," he explained.

Baby Pictures

Several times during his testimony, the defense showed the jury baby pictures of Joshua with his parents, including a photo taken in the woods of Kent on one of the family's numerous outings. A picture of 4-year-old Joshua showed him in a painter's hat painting a picket fence in the backyard of the Cheshire home. Ben Komisarjevsky said his son enjoyed being with him and helping him work around the house.

As the day's testimony wore on, though, it became progressively more disturbing.

Ben Komisarjevsky told the jury that in the early 1990s his daughter accused Joshua of sexually assaulting her. Komisarjevsky said he was shocked but conceded that it was probably true. And — in a refrain that seemed to thread through his recollection of many of the crises his family went through — Ben said that he and his wife did not know what to do. Distrusting psychiatry, they preferred turning to their faith for help.

Ben Komisarjevsky said his son's behavior deteriorated quickly. Joshua would sneak out of the house at night, and he fell in with a group of boys involved in what his father described as "satanic activities" — listening to the hard rock group Korn, shooting BB guns at windows, running away. At one point, Josh was arrested for setting a fire at a gas station, his father said.

One time, Ben Komisarjevsky said, after Josh had been away from home for a few days, he was found with marks all over his body. He was hospitalized and then sent to Elmcrest Psychiatric Center in Portland.

Under questioning from Bussert, Ben Komisarjevsky acknowledged that the family did not tell doctors at Elmcrest that Joshua had been the victim of sexual assault.

Komisarjevsky said he moved his family to New Hampshire to try to get away from these dark influences. For a short time Josh was enrolled in a day program for youths, but his father testified that other than that day program, he never got his son psychiatric help.

Ben Komisarjevsky said Josh was soon expelled from the day program because of his illegal activities, including being linked to burglaries at a campground.